First Impressions
by Saesama
Summary: Man meets Machine - a story old as time. But how many ways could the story have changed? AU's
1. Small Soldiers

o o o

Sam swallowed nervously as his car pulled to a stop without his input. He glanced at Mikaela beside him, who looked more than a little shell-shocked. Sam's internal debate on whether or not to give her an encouraging smile or hand-squeeze or something was interrupted when something small and pointy landed on his feet from under the dash. Sam squawked, jumping, even as the tiny yellow robot climbed his leg. At his knee, it jumped up, climbed the steering wheel, and sat on the dash board. The radio blared to life, and Sam realized that the thing's fingertips had actually merged into the dash.

_"I got friends... a blast to the stars, far away... come on over, come on over, baby,"_ the radio sang, skittering through stations.

Mikaela's eyes went wide, and she leaned towards the foot-tall metallic creature. "There's more of you coming, aren't there?" She asked it. "Friendly ones, instead of those things in the cop car, right?"

It nodded vigorously, clapping its hands, then jumped off the dash, grabbing Sam's shirt and climbing up to the boy's shoulder. "Guess that means it's time to go," Sam said, taking a deep breath.

They left the car, following the little thing's pointing hand away from the road and into a field of low desert scrub. A couple hundred feet out, it waved at them to stop and pointed up. Sam craned his neck. This far away from the city, the stars were clearly visible, diamond bright and cold. Nothing out of the ordinary was visible. "I don't see anything," Mikaela said, biting her lip as her eyes tracked across the heavens. "Do you?"

"No," Sam said slowly. "No, I don-wait! There!" He pointed, grabbing Mikaela's wrist excitedly. "Right there, just under the moon."

"Where?" She demanded, leaning closer to sight down his arm. "I don't see-" She broke off because she _did_ see, a tiny spot of light that was moving, getting closer. Fascinated, the two teens watched the light grow, like a headlight in a tunnel, headed right for them. A low whine started, felt more than heard, vibrating in their fillings and deep in their ears, growing steadily into a screaming whistle.

Abruptly, the light split, four instead of one, spiraling down in close formation. The scream grew, just shy of ear-shattering, and the four lights slammed into the earth in rapid succession about hundred feet away. Tiny hands tugged on Sam's shirt, and even though everything he'd ever learned about aliens screamed at him to run, hard and fast, he moved towards the landing site anyway, Mikaela just behind.

Four plumes of dust and smoke rose from the ground, billowing from craters the size of kiddy pools and about three times as deep. The little yellow robot swung down off Sam's shoulder, clambering down his arm and dropping to the ground. It scrambled towards the craters, hopping low bushes, and it didn't take much to see that it was just shy of ecstatic. It went from crater to crater, peering in before dancing to the next. From the crater closest to the teenagers, a tiny hand reached up to grab the exposed, scorched roots of the nearest bush, and an intricate little figure pulled itself out of the hole. "Holy shit," Sam breathed, as the thing shook dirt out of its crevices.

In the center of the circle formed by the craters, the little group gathered. They were different sizes, Sam noted, from a tiny silver figure just smaller than the little yellow guy, to two that were near twice the size of the little ones, and one that towered head and shoulders above them all, standing to just above Sam's knee. The tall one turned and walked up to the two dumbstruck teens, looking up at them with a complete lack of fear, the blue light from it's eyes glinting off red and blue armor. It studied Mikaela for a moment, then looked directly at Sam. "Are you Samuel James Witwicky?" It -he- asked, his voice amazingly rich for such a small being. "Descendant of Archibald Witwicky?"

Beside him, Mikaela let out a soft gasp. "Yeah," Sam managed.

The miniature machine nodded thoughtfully. "My name," he said. "Is Optimus Prime."

o o o

While working on 'Glances into a spark', I noticed that I kept coming up with different ideas for AU's a bit out of the normal range. Once I got to about four of them, I decided that they belongs in a collection all their own. Every one of these is centered on the base idea of 'man meets machine - first impressions', and not a single one of them is in any way canon. Anyone is free to take the ideas and expand on them or completely rape them or whatever, all I ask is that if something here inspired you, drop me a line.

Song Lyrics:

I Got Friends in Low Places Garth Brooks

Moon Baby Godsmack

Come On Over Christina Aguilera


	2. Mobile Suit Autobot

Mikaela eased her mobile suit into the dock, feeling metal shudder around her as the green mechanoid came to a halt. There was a hiss of pressure released, and she climbed from Ratchet's cockpit. A vibration under her feet made her look up to see the big form of Ironhide docking beside her suit, his chest opening even before he stopped moving to allow Will to climb out. Mikaela grinned at her team mate. "Reg hates it when you do that," she reminded him.

Will jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the larger suit and its pilot, on one of the upper dock levels. "He's not paying attention to me, now is he?" he asked.

"I saw it anyway," called down their leader's voice. Will cringed, and Mikaela laughed. "Get up here," Reggie continued. "I want your opinions on this kid."

They clanged up the metal ladder, stepping under the shadow of Optimus Prime. Reggie sat in the suit's open cockpit, the various screens surrounding him showing not the dock bay where they sat, but the view from the high-angle cameras pointed at the training ground not far away. Two suits danced across the scarred ground, the smallest versions a human could pilot, barely more than enough to safely transport a human between earth and the colonies. Jazz was familiar, all smooth movements like dancing as he dodged shots and returned fire. Bumblebee, Mikaela noted, moved with very little of the usual clumsiness of a new pilot. The new guy was _good._

"Not bad," Will said, folding his arms and leaning against the edge of Optimus Prime's cockpit. "Kid's a natural."

Mikaela tapped a button on her wrist bracer, bringing up Jazz's vital statistics on the edges of her vision. "And a good shot," she added. "Bobby's going to be hurting later."

"He got cocky," Reggie said absently. "Underestimated those little solar pulse cannons."

Mikaela's face darkened. "Dumbass," she muttered.

Reggie leaned towards the screen on his left, which showed the two suits locked in a grapple. "He's impulsive," he frowned. "A spazz. A _kid._"

"He's older than I am," Mikaela pointed out.

"Not everyone's a child prodigy," Will returned.

"You're expecting him to be like Tom," Mikaela said. The tactician had gotten slagged, and while they had been able to scavenge Prowl's CPU as a battle computer, Tom was never going to pilot again.

"Yeah, he's not as level-headed," Will continued. "But impulsive can be trained into improvisational. We send him and Bobby in; they could have the whole Decepticon fleet crippled before we even get there."

Reggie snorted, sitting back in his seat. Mikaela watched the screens, as Bumblebee changed his hold, rolling back to plant his feet in Jazz's torso and flip the smaller suit. Jazz went into a neat tuck and roll, and the comm unit in Optimus' cockpit burst into staticy cursing.

Will leaned over Reggie's leg, thumbing the intercom. "Having fun, Bobby?" he asked with a grin.

"Go to hell, Billy-boy," Bobby retorted.

"Ooh, if he's got you in a snit that bad, he's gotta be good."

"Enough," Reggie said. "Bring the kid in, Bobby."

"Yessir." On the screens, they saw Jazz make a slashing movement with one hand, calling an end to the fight. Bumblebee nodded, and both suits headed off-camera. Will leaned back against Optimus again. "Haven't seen a suit take to a pilot that well in a while," he said. "I think Bumblebee likes him."

"You're implying that they have personalities again," Reggie warned, exasperated, as he hauled himself out of the great suit. Will winked at Mikaela behind their leader's back, and the girl rolled her eyes even as she grinned. Maybe they weren't sentient, but the suits certainly did have personalities, her own being rather temperamental. Shaking her head, the mechanic followed the two older men down the ladders, past Ironhide and Ratchet to the smallest of the docks, where Bumblebee and Jazz were just approaching.

Parts of Jazz were still smoking, most of the damage centered on the suit's shoulder, "If I have to replace those shoulder mounts again," Mikaela growled at the figure climbing from the silver-edged cockpit. "I'm painting dear Jazz _magenta_."

Bobby smirked at her, completely unrepentant. The new guy looked equal parts terrified and exhilarated, his hands twitching at his sides as if he was fighting the urge to salute. "Can't blame me," Bobby said, clapping the young pilot on the shoulder. "Kid's got good aim."

"Aim you underestimated," Reggie snapped at him, before turning to the fidgety young man. "Sam, eighteen, only wore a grunt suit before," he said, confirming what he already knew when the boy nodded. "How'd you like the bug?"

Sam's face lit up in a brilliant grin. "That was _awesome,_" he gushed. "Bumblebee, he's, I mean, just, _nothing_ like the standard suits." He ran both hands into his hair and gave a brief tug, excited like a little kid at Christmas, and Mikaela made a note to ask Will or Bobby if she'd worn the same way-too-happy expression on her face the first time she'd crawled out of Ratchet's cockpit. The hair-pulling seemed to calm Sam down, and he dropped his hands back to his sides. "It was incredible," he said. "Easily one of the coolest things I've ever done. Sir."

"Good to hear it, son," Reggie said. "Because it's yours now." Turning on his heel, he stalked back to the ladder."

Sam gaped, even as Will whooped and Bobby threw a congratulatory arm around the boy's shoulders. "Wait a minute," Sam croaked. "I, you-" He turned on Bobby. "_You said this was just a training exercise!_"

"Well," Bobby drawled, "Maybe more like an audition?"

"Time to departure, five minutes," Reggie barked, already halfway back to Optimus Prime. "Mikaela, I want you to make sure the kid gets the bug home safe, got me?"

"Yessir," Mikaela called back. She turned back to Sam, who still looked flabbergasted. "Welcome to the team," she said. "We dock at the moon base, hangar four."

Sam seemed to snap out of his stupor. "The moon base?" he asked. "Why there?"

"Kid, you just joined the first line of defense against the Decepticons," Will said, heading for the ladder. "Gotta be ready to deploy at a moment's notice."

"When we get out, just follow the green one," Mikaela added, following Will. Sam nodded absently, gave himself an all-over shake, and went back to Bumblebee.

Settling in Ratchet, Mikaela slid her hands into the controls, already linking with the suit. He obeyed her commands, stepping back from the dock, his form already shifting for the brief space flight to the station. Information came to her in a steady flow, the states of each of her charges, her teammates. Bumblebee was already on the list, a yellow presence added to the white, black and blue, all of it over-colored with the brisk, slightly sarcastic tinge of Ratchet's presence.

"Time to departure, thirty seconds," came Reggie's voice over the comm, distorted by the odd acoustics of Optimus Prime's cockpit; deeper, more resonant. "Mobile team seven-three-four, active. Autobots, roll out!"

o o o

And because I didn't notice this until someone pointed it out in a review, Bobby isn't Bobby Bolivia, but Bobby Epps 8D


	3. Into the Darkness

The figure was tiny, not even up to his knee, a smooth, seamed construct of black material that a private comm to his medical officer labeled as 'organic' - carbon, water, nitrogen and a few other things, as far different from the cold metals of his own form as possible. There were layers to the thing, his MO said - tough black outer layer, smooth inner layer, some kind of fiber around the head, numerous inner mechanics that were disturbingly _flexible._

Megatron dismissed the scans his MO sent him with a flicker of will, studying the creature with his own optics. It appeared bipedal under infrared, shaped almost as they were, though where its face should have been, there was only an empty hole, unless it had a face in the shadows beneath the hood of its outer covering. /_Soundwave_/ he sent, not looking at the communications officer at his left. /_You are sure the thing is intelligent?_/

/_Affirmative_._ Language: strange. Intelligence: unquestionable_/ A moment's pause, before a file was nudged over the comm line. /_Language translation: carried on physical disk_/ The language was strange indeed, slow and full of slick, rounded sounds, suitable to a vocal method made of carbon and water rather than silicon and copper. Megatron studied it for a moment, and then refocused on the organic, which hadn't moved. "Who are you?" he demanded.

The creature bowed, fluid and smooth, with only a slight creak of it's outer skin and a clink of the metal beads it wore betraying it's movements. "My Lord, I am a traveler," it said, it's voice low and rich as it held it's supine pose, but there was no _submission_ in it's form. "I follow the Paths between Worlds, for the purpose of knowledge and worth."

"Worth," Megatron mused, tasting the word. "What worth do you seek?"

"I seek one who is worth serving," it said. "I have seen many Worlds, and none have revealed to me a King whose power and might is greater than my own. My Lord, I tired long ago of leading, and seek only to serve." Blackout let out a derisive snort from Megatron's right, which the creature ignored. "And, I feel, that I have finally found one whose power exceeds my own."

Megatron sat back in his seat, optics narrowed. "So, you wish to serve the Decepticon cause," he said slowly. "You speak of 'power finally exceeding your own', what power do you have that we can use?"

It raised its hand, and though Megatron knew from the scans that it lacked any weaponry, he still felt the need to draw his own cannon in return. It's fingers twitched, and at first, none could see any change, though they all felt it; a presence on the air, undetectable by the normal senses but there just the same, felt more by the Spark than any scanner, not exactly malevolent but _hungry_.

It was Starscream who called his attention to it, information in an arc-fast burst, and Megatron realized that the creature's _shadow_ was moving, writhing about his ankles and stretching out, no longer the creature's shape but something many-limbed and wispy. It stretched, further and further, and there was a rumble of disquiet when one wisp lifted from the floor, like an actual object, hovering and slowly growing longer yet.

One of Soundwave's little creations was the first to investigate, bouncing down from his creators shoulder to prod the inky blackness. His fingers passed right through it, as if it didn't exist, and the tiny mech made a questioning noise, cocking his head.

The shadow lashed out, wrapping around Rumble's arm and if it hadn't been substantial before, it certainly was now, wrenching him forward. Frenzy shrieked and went to his twin's rescue, clawing viciously at the blackness, his flailing limbs passing through it as his brother's did before it latched onto him as well, and both minibots found themselves in a web of clinging shadow. Megatron wondered idly if Soundwave would go to his creation's rescue, but the communications officer didn't twitch.

"You have ways of determining a material's substance," the newcomer said calmly, its stance never changing as the twins rolled and snarled and fought its creation. "Tell me, what am I controlling?"

There was a choked sound from the MO, and the comm that came through was nearly garbled in panic. /_My Lord, on every frequency that isn't visible light, __**there's nothing there**_/ Megatron snapped around to stare at the quaking bot, who was staring at the blackness with horror. /_Nothing, not material, not electrical, __**nothing,**__ as if his very shadow was trapping them_/

"It doesn't exist, does it?" At the soft question, Megatron turned back to the creature. "There are many things beyond the material," it continued. "My mastery over them is great, my knowledge of them, absolute." It was looking at him, Megatron knew; faceless, blank, and it was looking at him. "Your physical might is great, your technology is without parallel. I would teach you of those powers beyond what exists on the material plane, such that your power on any world is without equal." His fingers flexed, once, and the shadows clinging to Frenzy and Rumble disappeared without a trace.

As one, the twins rolled to their feet, and with infuriated screams, they leapt at the stranger, multiple limbs splayed for killing strikes. Something appeared out of the creature's shadow, a twisted white thing shaped as its master was. It swiped one limb at the twins, knocking them back with incredibly little effort, and they fell at Soundwave's feet. They bounced back up to continue the attack, but Megatron held up a hand, forestalling them. The white being disappeared in a blur of the same shadowy substance that had wrestled the twins, no trace of it left behind, and Megatron didn't have to ask his MO if the thing had appeared on any scans outside of visual.

/_What do they say about it?_/ Megatron sent to Soundwave.

There was a hesitance, brief but there. /_Cold_/ came the answer. /_Dead, cold, no shape, no substance. Suggestion: Eliminate the creature_/

Studying the smooth black form, Megatron made his choice. "I would hear more about these 'powers' you speak of," he said softly, dangerously.

Under his hood, Xemnas smiled.

o o o

Kingdom Hearts and I have had a long-time love affair, and I do so love me some crossovers.


	4. Consumers Power

When it was like this, when it was late and the great power plant was manned by just a skeleton crew, that's when she heard the Voice.

_Help me._

She knew what it was, of course. All of the plant workers were warned about the Voice. Evil alien homing beacons hacking into the cybernetic implants in their heads, trying to steer them to madness and destruction. If any of them heard the Voice, they were to report it, immediately.

She hadn't reported it, had gone on, trying to ignore the Voice. Reporting it meant getting removed from the plant, and she was close, so close, to Supervisor.

Besides, the Voice didn't sound dangerous. Only hurt, and very, very sad.

_Please come to me._

She wondered how the aliens had learned to mimic human emotions. They came from the stars, soulless machines following an unknown signal. The first had landed untold ages ago, and had been their only specimen for so long. Them more came, and more, and a war had started. Now the Sector caught every machine that fell from the stars, caught them and what they did with them, she did not know. Her brother was on one of the Hunter teams, and all he could say was that they delivered the captured machines to Simmons. Whatever happened to them, the technology gleaned from the things was incredible, and she didn't envy her forbearers, who died of injury and disease and old age at such a _young_ age, rarely living past their first century.

Then she would hear the Voice, as she flipped switches and monitored the power distribution across five hundred miles of the east coast. And she wondered what it wanted.

_Help me._

It got louder in the plant itself, near the great room where the Core rested, a windowless cylinder fifty feet tall. No one went into the Core; energon from the refineries flowed in through pipes, crackling electricity filled the wires out. The Core itself stayed sealed.

_Please._

And something inside wanted out.

A few times, a few terrifying times, she found herself at the single hatch that led to the inner Core, listening to the Voice and coming close, oh so close, to opening the door. But she would pull back, would walk away.

_Help me._

And she was there again, the steps between Operations and the Core a blank, and her hand was on the latch.

_**Help me.**_

And oh, she was going to pay for this, but the Voice swayed her, strong and powerful and sad, so very sad.

She opened the door.

He was huge, a great scarlet and azure man made of metal. He stood in the center of the Core, arms spread and bolted into steel harnesses above his head, his great feet locked into concrete locks on the floor. His chest was ripped open, metal plates peeled back like the skin of a fruit. Energon pipes ran into his chest, spliced into tubing like arteries, and power lines tapped into-

Into-

She didn't know _what_ the power lines tapped into. It glimmered and jumped in a cavity in his chest, a living spark of lightning in a nest of wire and metal.

He was looking at her.

His face was turned towards her, a solemn countenance that matched the Voice now ringing in her skull, as if the walls of the Core had shielded her from the full force.

_Release me._

She stared up at him, aching for him. "How?"

"You can't."

She whipped around, her heart seizing in her throat. Simmons. The leader of the Sector, an ancient crone of a man, more machine than human from all the artificial enhancements he'd had done over the decades to keep him alive. He was staring up at the metal man with eyes as black and cold as crude oil. "He's trapped here, providing power for the good ol' U-S-of-A."

The Voice surged, fury unlike any she'd ever known mingling with the sadness.

_**RELEASE MY PEOPLE.**_

"Not a chance," Simmons said, far too cheerfully. "Your 'people' are ours now, ours to study and learn from." He grinned, icy cold. "More are arriving every year. You know how many plants are running now, with your 'people' as the Core? The whole damn continent and then some, running on nice, clean energon." His grin turned downright demonic. "And you should've seen what some of those nice, big cannons you lot brought us did to our enemies overseas."

The Voice was incoherent with rage, roaring within her mind even as the great metal man remained perfectly still. Simmons smiled up at him then turned to look at her. "And you," he said softly, no warmth, no mercy in his eyes or his voice. "Maybe the Formatters will let you keep a bit of your sanity."

Hands grabbed her, huge black-clad Sector agents with stony faces behind their sunglasses. She cringed, not from their touch, but from the force of the Voice raging behind her eyes.

_**LET HER GO.**_

And what amazed her was that the Voice was tinged with regret, not because his escape was foiled but because she was going to suffer because of him, completely selfless in his concern for her. She looked up, up, into the great glowing lights of his eyes. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

_**Do not be. The fault is mine.**_

Then one of the agents touched her neck, where the metal plates of her cybernetic enhancements were exposed, and she knew no more.

o o o

What if, instead of the Autobots or Decepticons winning, _Simmons_ had won?

In the movie supplementary guide book, Optimus' spark is described as being 'able to be used as a power source if necessary'. That, combined with actually getting to work in a power plant, plus reading Lovecraft, led to this.


	5. Actors

Bumblebee smiled down at the awestruck humans, even though they wouldn't see it as a smile. They were staring at him, wide-eyed, muttering to each other about his possible origin and settling on Japan. Bumblebee didn't mind. Optimus would set them straight when he got there.

"Can you talk?"

Well, no, he couldn't. But he had speakers and a satellite connection and hey, there was _just_ the commercial he needed.

"So, y-you talk with the radio?"

Add a little clapping along with the radio applause, show them he wasn't just a mindless robot spitting out broadcasts, and oh, he hoped they wouldn't end up running away from him. The girl made an odd face at his movements, while the boy just looked perplexed.

"So, last night, what was that?"

He had to jump back and forth, skimming the channels, a clip here, a word there, ending with a revival pastor that made him laugh inside, '_rain down like visitors from heaven, hallelujah!'_

The girl, her face doing more of those strange motions. "So, what are you some kind of-"

"Cut!"

...Cut? Didn't they shout that on movie sets?

Bumblebee frowned, concerned, when a man stalked over to the boy and girl, megaphone in his hand. "What the hell," he said flatly, staring up at Bumblebee. "Was _that_? A religious broadcast? Seriously?"

"Lay off the robot, Michael," the girl said, chidingly. "It works better than using Star Trek videos off Youtube."

Robot?

"Oh, for the love of-"

"You wanted an actor, Mike," the boy said. Not an animatronic-"

Animatronic? A ...puppet?

"-but something with personality. I think you'll have to deal with it ad-libbing the radio lines."

Radio lines? Ad-libbing? Did he mean this was _scripted?_

"Besides, I like this one."

Implying there was more than one of him and _what was going on?_

The man - Michael? - threw up his hands. "Fine," he groused. "But if I get fundies on my ass for using that preacher's voice, I'm redirecting them to you two. Someone reset Bumblebee!"

Reset? What was this? None of this was making sense, and someone was opening a panel on his foot and no, no, this was all wrong, all wrong, and he tried to contact Optimus and only got silence in return and **no-**

_vygfhjbnksbdnjuh(#&kssssssssh-_

_Reboot in 3..._

_2..._

_1..._

Bumblebee smiled down at the awestruck humans, even though they wouldn't see it as a smile. They were staring at him, wide-eyed, muttering to each other about his possible origin and settling on Japan. Bumblebee didn't mind. Optimus would set them straight when he got there.


End file.
